COTTEY COLLEGE ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT OF PRESIDENT JUDY R. ROGERS

Tuesday, May 06, 2014

“It is with mixed emotions that the Cottey College Board of Trustees announces the retirement of President Judy R. Rogers,” wrote Janet Brown, Chair of the Board of Trustees. “The Board of the Trustees and the campus community will lose a visionary leader in our retiring president, and the generosity of her time, depth of character, and charismatic passion for our college and its students will be sorely missed.”

Dr. Rogers became the eleventh president of Cottey College in July 2004, when she left her position at Georgetown College in Kentucky to accept the leadership of Cottey. One of Dr. Rogers’ strengths was in leadership education, and she immediately set out to strengthen the leadership programming at Cottey.

The Institute for Women’s Leadership and Social Responsibility, which is the umbrella under which the various baccalaureate programs are integrated, as well as the LEO (Leadership, Experiences, Opportunity) Program, which offers a four-level leadership certification for the associate degree students, were programs she envisioned and implemented. Dr. Rogers also created the Presidential Leadership Program (PLP) which taught leadership to girls at Nevada High School. All of these programs thrived under her leadership.

One of Dr. Rogers’ most noteworthy accomplishments was the College’s expansion into Bachelor of Arts degree programs. As part of the strategic planning process with the Trustees, the first three baccalaureate programs (English, Environmental Studies, and International Relations and Business) were approved to be added to the curriculum in fall 2011. The first graduates of those programs accepted their diplomas in May 2013. Today, Cottey offers six B.A. degree programs: Business, English, Environmental Studies, International Relations and Business, Liberal Arts, and Psychology.

Dr. Rogers also oversaw a successful five-year comprehensive campaign, titled A Defining Moment: The Campaign for Cottey College. The $35 million campaign was the largest ever in the College’s history, and was launched in the midst of an economic recession. Despite that, the Campaign exceeded its goal by over $5 million at its conclusion in January 2014.

One of the five priorities of the Campaign was to raise funds to construct a new Fine Arts Instructional Building. The success of the Campaign allowed Cottey to break ground on this facility on April 18, 2014. Because of Dr. Rogers’ incredible leadership in this campaign, the Board of Trustees has named the building in honor of her and her husband, Dr. Glenn Rogers. The facility will be named the Judy and Glenn Rogers Fine Arts Building.

After Dr. Rogers announced her intent to retire, the Trustees retained the search firm, AGB Search, LLC. A search committee is being formed on campus, and will have its first meeting on May 19, 2014. The chair of the committee is Dr. Susan Santoli of Mobile, Alabama, who is the former chair of the Cottey College Board of Trustees. Dr. Rogers hopes to retire in spring of 2015 with a new president in place.

Members of the campus community join the Board of Trustees in congratulating Judy and Glenn Rogers on their successes as leaders of Cottey College and wish them happiness in their well-deserved retirement.

Cottey College is an independent, liberal arts and sciences college for women offering two-year and selected four-year degree programs. Cottey is located in Nevada, Missouri. Its residential student capacity of 350 typically represents 40 states and 20 countries. Cottey is owned by the P.E.O. Sisterhood, an international women’s organization of over 238,000 members making Cottey the only nonsectarian college in the United States owned and supported by women for women.